- Uganda: Court Releases Prominent Rights Activist on Bail
Source: US News & World Report
“A Ugandan court on Wednesday released on bail a prominent rights activist whose detention was seen by campaign groups as part of a widespread crackdown on dissent ahead of the country’s general election that was held on January 15. Sarah Bireete, who heads the Centre for Constitutional Governance, a Kampala-based pressure group, was detained on December 30 after questioning the accuracy of the voter register to be used in the poll. She was later charged with offences related to alleged unlawful disclosure of voters’ information. … Rights groups and the opposition have long accused his government of using the military to suppress dissent. The government denies those accusations.” (01/28/26)
- Safety Board Blames FAA For Multiple Failures in DC Crash
Source: New York Times
“The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the Federal Aviation Administration had approved dangerous flight routes that allowed an Army helicopter to fly into the path of a passenger jet over the Potomac River on Jan. 29, 2025, to calamitous results. … the investigating board also castigated the agency for not doing enough to respond to warnings about longtime risks to safety and found a complacent culture within the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport that relied too heavily on pilots in the airspace being able to see and steer clear of each others’ aircraft, a practice called visual separation. They also determined that insufficient warnings from the air traffic controller to the pilots of the Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet involved in the crash, and altimeters that, unbeknown to the helicopter pilots, habitually gave faulty readings of altitude, also contributed to the tragic crash.” (01/28/26)
- Hungary: Regime charges Budapest mayor for allowing banned pride march
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Hungarian prosecutors have charged Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony over his role in arranging last year’s gay pride march in the capital city, which attracted hundreds of thousands of people despite a ban. Prosecutors have ‘filed charges and seek a fine against the mayor of Budapest, who organised and led a public gathering despite a police ban,’ their office said in a statement announcing the case on Wednesday. … Since returning to power in 2010, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been tightening his grip over the country and has targeted groups advocating for human rights. Orban’s conservative government has also pushed for legislation promoting traditional family values and steadily rolled back LGBTQ rights. In 2025, his Fidesz party amended laws and the constitution to ban the annual pride march, drawing protests from critics and the European Union.” (01/28/26)
- Third “No Kings” US-wide protest planned for March
Source: Politico
“The group behind the nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests are planning their fourth demonstration of President Donald Trump’s second term — and are anticipating even greater turnout than their earlier rallies. Ezra Levin, a rally organizer and the co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible, said in an interview that the planned third ‘No Kings’ protest on March 28 is in response to a ‘secret police force terrorizing American communities.’ … Indivisible estimated 3 million protesters turned out for its ‘Hands Off’ rally in April 2025, while 5 million showed up in June as part of the first ‘No Kings’ protest and 7 million for the second ‘No Kings’ demonstration in October. Organizers said they are aiming for nearly 9 million people to turn out in March.” (01/28/26)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/28/no-kings-protest-march-00750265
- Turkey: Six arrested on suspicion of spying for Iran
Source: The New Arab [UK]
“Turkish authorities have arrested six people, including an Iranian national, on suspicion of spying for Iran, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Wednesday. The arrests followed coordinated operations carried out by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization and counterterrorism police across five provinces. The suspects are believed to have been in contact with members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and are accused of gathering information on military bases and other sensitive sites in Turkey, Anadolu reported. They allegedly conducted surveillance of NATO’s Incirlik air base in southern Turkey.” (01/28/26)
https://www.newarab.com/news/turkish-authorities-arrest-6-suspicion-spying-iran
- GOP senators open to splitting off heimatschutz funding to pass other key spending bills
Source: The Hill
“A group of Republican senators is open to splitting the Homeland Security appropriations measure off from a six-bill government funding package that needs to pass by Friday to avoid a partial government shutdown that would affect the Pentagon and other major departments. … A senior Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss the standoff over funding said Senate Republicans would prefer to move all six spending bills as one package but would probably agree to leave the Homeland Security funding measure behind if Democrats dig in their heels.” (01/28/26)
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5711426-gop-senators-dhs-funding-bills/
- Ecuador regime files protest after ICE gang tries to enter its consulate in Minneapolis
Source: United Press International
“The Foreign Ministry of Ecuador has filed a protest with the U.S. Embassy in the South American country after a federal immigration agent tried to enter its consulate in Minneapolis. Uncorroborated video of the incident shared online shows a consular employee confronting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents attempting to enter the facility. The employee stands in the doorway and tells the ICE agent that he is not allowed to enter. The ICE agent is heard telling the employee to ‘relax’ and threatens to ‘grab’ the employee if the agent is touched. … Law enforcement of the host country is generally prohibited from entering diplomatic missions of foreign nations, including consulates, except with the consent of the head of the mission, Article 22 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 states.” (01/28/26)
- Study: Sleep timing could directly impact chances of heart attack or stroke
Source: Fox News
“Adults who consider themselves ‘night owls’ tend to score lower in cardiovascular health assessments and face a higher risk of heart attack or stroke. That’s according to a new study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, which examined how a person’s chronotype — their natural tendency to be active in the morning or evening — is linked to overall heart health. The researchers looked at 14 years of UK Biobank data for around 300,000 adults averaging 57 years old, according to a press release for the study. … people who were more active in the evening (‘night owls’) had a 79% higher risk of poor cardiovascular health compared to the intermediate group, and a 16% higher risk of heart attack or stroke, the release stated. People who identified as being more active in the morning had slightly better heart health scores. The link was more pronounced in women than men.” (01/28/26)
- Montenegro Could Face Fuel Shortages Due to Truckers’ Blockade
Source: US News & World Report
“Montenegro could face fuel shortages due to region-wide protests and a blockade of the Adriatic port of Bar by truck drivers over restrictive EU entry rules that have left them facing deportation for exceeding Schengen visit limits. The port of Bar is the biggest entry point for overseas fuel imports into Montenegro, which has no oil refining capacity of its own. It also houses the country’s largest fuel depots. Blockades of border crossings in Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro and North Macedonia that began on Monday have halted transport along a critical road corridor linking the EU with Turkey and the Middle East. In a statement late on Tuesday, the Montenegrin Energy Ministry said it asked oil companies for information on stocks, and on the estimated period during which regular fuel supplies could be maintained.” (01/28/26)
- Judge rips into ICE gang but chickens out on forcing shot-caller to appear in court
Source: Politico
“The top federal judge in Minneapolis backed off a plan to haul the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement into court Friday, but delivered a brutal condemnation of the agency for repeatedly defying judges’ orders in cases stemming from the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz tore into the agency in a Wednesday order for what he characterized as a pattern of unprecedented defiance — violating dozens of court orders in ways that abused the rights of immigrants facing deportation proceedings. … Despite the judge’s fury, his order amounted to a reprieve of sorts for ICE’s acting director Todd Lyons, whom Schiltz had previously ordered to appear before him Friday to address potential contempt of court.” (01/28/26)
- South Korea: Court jails former first lady for bribery
Source: Reuters
“A South Korean court sentenced former first lady Kim Keon Hee to 20 months in jail on Wednesday for accepting Chanel bags and a diamond pendant from Unification Church officials in return for providing political favours. The wife of ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was ousted from office last year, was cleared on other charges of stock price manipulation and violating the political funds act. Prosecutors will appeal against the not-guilty verdicts, media reports said. The ruling comes amid a series of trials stemming from investigations into Yoon’s brief imposition of martial law in 2024 and related scandals involving the once-powerful couple.” (01/28/26)
- Social Security Isn’t a Retirement Account — and Congress Must Stop Pretending It Is
Source: The Daily Economy
by Romina Boccia“Many Americans think Social Security works like a retirement account. In Cato polling conducted in August, about one in four said they believed they had a personal account within the system. That misconception didn’t arise by accident. Politicians routinely describe payroll taxes as ‘contributions,’ speak of a ‘trust fund’ as if it held real savings, and defend benefits as ‘earned.’ Social Security is not a savings program. It is a pay-as-you-go transfer system. Today’s workers’ payroll taxes fund today’s retirees’ benefits. There is no individual account accumulating a balance over time. Payroll taxes are taxes, neither deposits nor savings. Its early history makes that clear.” (01/28/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/social-security-isnt-a-retirement-account/
- The Real Reason Beef Costs More: Fewer Cows, Not Corporate Greed
Source: Reason
by Jack Nicastro“It’s not corporate greed that’s driving up the price of beef at the grocery store; it’s the fact that it’s now much more expensive for meat-packers to buy beef from farms. This isn’t due to cattle farmers colluding to raise prices. There are simply fewer cows. The American beef inventory shrank from 30.9 million in January 2021 to 27.9 million in January 2025, according to the most recent Agriculture Department data. From January 2021 to January 2026, cattle and calves on feed for the U.S. slaughter market, the main indicator of the six-month supply of beef, declined by 500,000 head. This decrease is attributable to a combination of weather, disease, and reduced imports.” (01/28/26)
https://reason.com/2026/01/28/the-real-reason-beef-costs-more-fewer-cows-not-corporate-greed/
- Bigger government is enemy of liberty
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal“There is no ‘right vs. left,’ no ‘conservative vs. liberal,’ no ‘Republican vs. Democrat.’ These labels are deliberate distractions — tools used by the true culprit to keep people confused, angry, and divided. The real conflict has always been simpler and more fundamental: the State against you and your liberty. Anyone who helps expand the State, either by giving it more wealth, providing an excuse to gain more power, or cheering its growth, is an enemy of individual liberty and human rights.” (01/28/26)
- Christian Nationalism and the Devil’s Bargain
Source: Chasing Liberty
by Jeff Charles“Christian nationalism is a political movement that seeks to blend its view of Christianity with government power. The objective is to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us through laws and policies. They believe the United States is — or should be — a Christian nation governed by those who subscribe to their religious orthodoxy. In the end, what Christian nationalists want is control. The pursuit of power as a means of control stands in direct opposition to Christ’s teachings.” (01/28/26)
https://www.libertychasers.com/p/christian-nationalism-and-the-devils
- We Have Been Here Before
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman“Congress passes a law. States where the law is unpopular refuse to enforce it. The federal government hires hundreds of armed federal agents, sets then to enforcing the law. Chaos follows, the law is widely violated with the approval of many, including a state governor and prominent media figures. The time is the early Twentieth Century. The law is the Volstead Act, setting up federal enforcement of prohibition. … It is not a perfect parallel to the present situation. Prohibition was the result of a constitutional amendment, was ended by the repeal of that amendment. The present conflict was started by the election of a president with majorities in both houses of Congress who was determined to enforce existing law more energetically than in the past.” (01/28/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/we-have-been-here-before
- On guns, everyone’s a hypocrite
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
by Jonathan Zimmerman“When Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people, two of them fatally, at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 — in self-defense, he said — Republicans made him into a hero. But when Alex Pretti showed up at an anti-ICE demonstration with a loaded handgun, Trump administration officials condemned him as a ‘would-be assassin’ and a ‘domestic terrorist.’ It’s outrageous. And hypocritical. Yet when it comes to guns, everyone’s a hypocrite right now. All of us are allowing the fatal shooting of Pretti in Minneapolis last week to alter our principles.” [editor’s note: Nope, not all of us – TLK] (01/28/26)
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/alex-pretti-ice-shooting-gun-ownership-hypocrisy-20260128.html
- The Most Socialist System in America Is the One Feeding Us — and It’s Failing
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Mollie Engelhardt“merica loves to debate socialism. We argue about universal healthcare, guaranteed income, student loan forgiveness, and government dependency. We pride ourselves on our rugged independence and belief in free markets. We warn that socialism destroys innovation, freedom, and personal responsibility. But here’s the uncomfortable truth most Americans never stop to consider: the most centrally planned, government-dependent, subsidy-driven system in the United States isn’t medicine, housing, or energy — it’s food.” (01/28/26)
- AI in government: From tools to transformation
Source: Niskanen Center
by Ann Lewis“Artificial intelligence offers potential for governmental transformation, but like all emerging technologies, it can only catalyze meaningful change when paired with effective operating models. Without this foundation, AI risks amplifying existing government inefficiencies rather than delivering breakthroughs. The primary barrier to AI-based breakthroughs is not an agency’s interest in adopting new tools but the structures and habits of government itself, particularly excessive risk management; rigid hierarchies; and organizational silos rather than adaptive problem solving and effective service delivery. Structural reform is critical and must accompany adoption of AI.” (01/28/28)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/ai-in-government-from-tools-to-transformation/
- Literal prostitutes don’t get to define masculinity
Source: Sex and the State
by Cathy Reisenwitz“Whores are the authority on masculinity. If you want to understand hunger, you don’t ask a hungry person. You ask someone who sells food. Whores sell masculinity to men. We don’t put it like that, of course. We sell sex, nominally. Because sex is what masculine men are supposed to want. Sex and power and resources. But they’re not allowed to want anything else. It’s not masculine to want to be touched softly. It’s not masculine to want to feel important or loved or interesting or special or attractive. Feelings are for girls, unless the feeling is anger or lust. It’s the same with food, too. Or really anything else you want to sell. What you’re selling isn’t a product or service, ultimately. It’s a feeling. It’s an experience. It’s a dream. Look at advertising.” (01/28/26)
https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/literal-prostitutes-dont-get-to-define
- Is This a Police State?
Source: Mother Jones
by David Corn“If you deploy a paramilitary force to terrorize the public — which certainly was the goal of flooding ICE and CBP agents into the Twin Cities — you must support your thugs and back up the narrative that the people they brutalize and perhaps kill had it coming. You can’t enforce rules and regs for this force. That will reveal contradictions and undermine your Manichean tale of good (us) and evil (them). This is about power and decidedly not about the rule of law. The aim is to obliterate the rule of law. So are we now in a police state? Not quite.” (01/28/26)
- Canada, California, and Chinese Electric Cars
Source: Independent Institute
by K Lloyd Billingsley“On his recent trip to Beijing, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney praised the leadership of Xi Jinping and announced plans to bring 49,000 Chinese electric cars into Canada. In several ways that escaped notice, Carney was following in the footsteps of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. … In the late 1970s, Prime Minister Trudeau allowed the USSR to sell the Soviet-built Lada in Canada. Like all cars produced by Communist regimes, the Lada was an inferior vehicle that failed to catch on with Canadians in a significant way. The ‘plagiarized Fiat,’ as one reviewer called it, was built in the USSR, so the deal did not benefit Canadian auto workers, then struggling to compete with the surging Japanese.” (01/28/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/01/28/canada-california-and-chinese-electric-cars/
- Transmitting Western Civilization
Source: Law & Liberty
by Jeffrey Bristol“The time is ripe for The Golden Thread, James Hankins and Allen Guelzo’s ambitious two-volume history of Western civilization. Coming into a society that has passed its global obsession and is beginning to consider what being particularly rather than universally cultured means (and whether the latter is even possible without the former), there is a felt need for a project like theirs. In this vein, The Golden Thread forms part of a genre well-established in English-speaking popular culture, but one we’ve abandoned in recent decades. I hope its publication indicates revitalization.” (01/28/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/transmitting-western-civilization/
- Goofy Wig and All
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“‘Disguised and undercover,’ explains the O’Keefe Media Group article, ‘James O’Keefe embeds inside the World Economic Forum, slipping past armed security and exclusive guest lists to capture what the global climate elite say when they think no one is listening.’ The bad haircut? A goofy blond wig that Mr. O’Keefe (1984– ) donned to fool the European bigwigs (er, elites). He looked like Andy Warhol as a special guest on ‘Sprockets.’ What did this subterfuge accomplish? ‘Posing as an employee of a fictional climate engineering firm, O’Keefe and the OMG team are welcomed into late-night events, luxury hotels, and mountaintop forums where climate financiers openly discuss carbon taxes, geoengineering, and weather modification, commonly referred to as ‘chemtrails.’’ Yes, chemtrails!” (01/28/26)
- There’s Never Been a More Fitting Time for Democrats to Stop Funding ICE
Source: In These Times
by Sonali Kolhatkar“More Americans now support abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) than keeping it. A January 13, 2026 Economist/YouGov poll found that 46 percent want to eliminate ICE, compared to 43 percent who support preserving it. It’s a trend that’s been growing since ICE agents have been running rampant in U.S. cities during President Donald Trump’s second term. … Senators who believe in compassion and human rights have a unique opportunity to pull back the agency’s powers by refusing to back an appropriations bill passed by the House of Representatives. That bill, according to the ACLU, ’would renew ICE’s excessive budget, with no strings attached, adding to the over $170 billion in taxpayer funds already allocated for immigration enforcement in July 2025.'” (01/28/26)
- Why Minneapolis Indictments Are Coming
Source: Washington Monthly
by Jonathan Alter“Philadelphia D.A. Larry Krasner on the ins and outs of prosecuting crimes committed by law enforcement.” (01/28/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/01/28/why-minneapolis-indictments-are-coming/
- The Golden Age of America Made Great Again
Source: Consent Factory, Inc.
by CJ Hopkins“Has America been made great again enough for you yet? I asked that question back in May of last year in a column titled The Godzilla Window. It didn’t go over very well at the time, at least not with my conservative readers. … And now, here we are, eight months later, just over one year into The Golden Age of America Made Great Again, and … well, you know what’s happening. … I’m not going to go on and on about all the details of the MAGA authoritarianism on display in the USA currently. It would take an entire column to do that, and you have access to the same news that I do. Instead, I want to urge you to step back from the intense political polarization of the moment and focus on the fundamental forces at play.” (01/28/26)
https://consentfactory.org/2026/01/28/the-golden-age-of-america-made-great-again/
- Reform on the Move
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Harry Phibbs“Like the United States, the United Kingdom has a first-past-the-post voting system. This tends to entrench a two-party system. It takes a lot for other rivals to break through. The resulting culture of complacency and entitlement by the main parties is certainly less than ideal. In the UK, politics has been dominated by the Conservative and Labour Parties for the last century. In 1922, Labour overtook the Liberal Party. By 1924, the Liberal Party’s support had collapsed. Our opinion polling suggests that just over a hundred years later, British politics is having another shake-up. An insurgent party called Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, a friend of Donald Trump’s, has a commanding lead in the polls, and has done so since the end of April last year.” (01/28/26)
- What ICE’s Extremism in Minnesota Reveals
Source: Common Dreams
by JM Berger“In principle, extremists primarily seek to harm people who do not share their race, religion, or nationality. In practice, they often harm the very people they claim to serve and protect, people with whom they share some supposedly sacred demographic. Consider Minnesota, currently under siege by anti-immigrant extremists in the employ of the federal government, with ICE and CBP at the forefront. Immigrants have indisputably suffered the most from this program of harm, but we have seen a recent turn toward harming non-immigrants.” (01/28/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/extremism-ice-enforcement
- An unlikely ally for open-source protein-folding models: Big Pharma
Source: Understanding AI
by Kai Williams“Protein-folding models are the success story in AI for science. In the late 2010s, researchers from Google DeepMind used machine learning to predict the three-dimensional shape of proteins. AlphaFold 2, announced in 2020, was so good that its creators shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry with an outside academic. Yet many academics have had mixed feelings about DeepMind’s advances.” (01/28/26)
https://www.understandingai.org/p/an-unlikely-ally-for-open-source
- Trump officials, Alex Pretti and the truth
Source: Washington Post
by Ramesh Ponnuru“You’re a government official and you have just learned that some of your employees have shot and killed a civilian. You don’t have all the facts, and there are discrepancies in the initial accounts. What do you do? For most of us, I presume, the answer is to call the victim’s family to express condolences and then to promise the public a full investigation followed by whatever consequences the results warrant. That’s how previous administrations, regardless of party, would have responded. But the Trump administration views such niceties as weakness. Looking weak, giving an inch to the critics, must be avoided at all costs. … If the administration were consciously pursuing a strategy optimized for producing confrontation rather than for bringing down the number of illegal immigrants, it would be proceeding just as it has been.” (01/28/26)
- How legacy media fell for Trump’s fake “pivot” in Minnesota
Source: Popular Information
by Judd Legum & Noel Sims“After ICU nurse Alex Pretti was fatally shot by federal officers at point-blank range, legacy media outlets reported that President Trump made significant changes to his immigration crackdown in Minnesota. … But what, exactly, has changed about Trump’s policy in Minnesota? The immigration crackdown in the Minneapolis area will continue indefinitely. Trump has made no announcement to end — or even suspend — the operation. Nor will any of the leaders who have been overseeing the operation that resulted in the death of Pretti and another U.S. citizen, Renee Good, be held accountable.” (01/28/26)
- Ted Cruz’s anti-Tucker pose for 2028 is truly a Jurassic Park dud
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jack Hunter“Ted Cruz is reportedly planning on running for president. But which version? The Tea Party Republican senator who once called the Iraq war a mistake, tried to appeal to non-interventionist Ron Paul libertarians, questioned Barack Obama’s authority to strike Syria, warned against U.S. military adventurism, who was also once the favored alternative to Donald Trump in the 2016 GOP presidential primary only to eventually capitulate to MAGA even after Trump insulted his wife? No. This Cruz will be neocon. But without calling it that, or even appearing to rebrand to Trump voters, while also, in actuality, rebranding.” (01/28/26)
- Duke’s Tent City “K-Ville” — Still Crazy After 40 Years
Source: The Daily Economy
by Michael Munger“Students’ evolved ticket queuing system is perceived as legitimate because it balances effort, transparency, and equal opportunity.” (01/28/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/dukes-tent-city-k-ville-still-crazy-after-40-years/
- Fighting back against Texas’s wave of censorship
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Graham Piro“The chill in the air on Texas’[s] campuses isn’t just the winter storm sweeping the nation. The state’s public university systems have taken aim at faculty course materials that touch on the topics of race and gender, imposing a system of effective prior review that gives administrators carte blanche to excise course material they don’t like or think will pose political problems. At Texas A&M University alone, administrators have canceled or interfered with approximately 200 courses. Now faculty and students are fighting back.” (01/28/26)
https://www.thefire.org/news/fighting-back-against-texas-wave-censorship
- Politicians Make Things Worse
Source: Townhall
by John Stossel“Home prices keep rising. One reason is that today’s houses are bigger. Buyers now want more rooms, washers and dryers and air-conditioning. But even if you adjust for the improvements, houses cost more today. Why? Politicians blame big companies like Blackstone, Invitation Homes and JPMorgan because they’ve been buying thousands of homes. … The opposite is true. The biggest reason for rising prices is intrusive government. Regulations now account for almost a quarter of the cost of a new home.” (01/28/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2026/01/28/politicians-make-things-worse-n2670182
- Minnesota is the Beginning of an American Color Revolution
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman“A little background: a ‘color revolution’ is a widely used term for the nonviolent uprisings that overthrew some of the autocratic regimes that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The most famous of these uprisings was the 2004 Orange Revolution that brought democracy to Ukraine. Ukrainian democracy has had its ups and downs since then, but it’s still standing — and still standing up to Russia’s brutal attempts at conquest. Early in the second Trump administration it was clear that something like a color revolution was the only way to reverse the destruction of American democracy.” (01/28/26)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/minnesota-is-the-beginning-of-an
- Worse Than Lying
Source: The Dispatch
by Jonah Goldberg“In his seminal book On Bulls— (the actual title isn’t censored), philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt argues that lying implies a certain respect for, and knowledge of, the truth. ‘It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bulls— requires no such conviction.’ What this administration does is worse than lying because they don’t care whether something is true or false, only whether it will be believed. The Trump White House is a bulls— distribution hub, that connects via tubes, canals, and sluices across the media landscape. Like some vast Rube Goldberg contraption, the guy on the giant hamster wheel powering the whole thing is a president who spent his life saying whatever he needed to say at any given moment to make a deal, get out of trouble, whatever.” (01/28/26)
- Don’t Make Bovino the Fall Guy for the Violence Trump Long Craved
Source: Washington Monthly
by Bill Scher“‘Nobody in the White House, including President Trump, wants to see people getting hurt or killed in America’s streets.’ So claimed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday, apparently as part of a strategy to separate the president from the second killing in Minnesota perpetrated by federal immigration agents. The plan also included demoting Greg Bovino, who held the title of Commander At Large at the U.S. Border Patrol, and removing him from his role as head of Minnesota’s mass deportation initiative, ‘Operation Metro Surge.’ Leavitt is wrong. Trump has a well-documented record of expressing his desire for protesters and immigrants to get hurt, and to get hurt by law enforcement officials. Bovino’s fall, after a fact-challenged defense of his trigger-happy agents, may provide some short-term schadenfreude. But let’s not allow Trump to get away with scapegoating Bovino.” (01/28/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/01/28/bovino-the-fall-guy-for-the-violence-trump-wanted/
- After Alex Pretti’s Death, the Administration Signals a Shift on Immigration Enforcement
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille“It turns out that President Donald Trump can change direction when a high-profile enforcement effort staged for political impact instead causes blowback. While sending 2,000 federal agents to Minnesota was supposed to embarrass the state’s Democratic politicians and make them look impotent, it instead resulted in the deaths of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti and further alienated a public already turning against hardline immigration policies. The shift is welcome, but the price in lives required to achieve it is too high. It’s also unlikely to bring us the far-reaching law enforcement reform we need.” (01/28/26)
- Parallax Views w/ JG Michael, 01/28/26
Source: Parallax Views w/ JG Michael
“The Killing of Alex Pretti and the Siege at Ruby Ridge: Examining the Parallels w/ Jim Bovard.” (01/28/26)
- The Political Orphanage, 01/28/26
Source: The Political Orphanage
“I Time Traveled to Talk to Medieval Yokels about Economics.” (01/28/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/i-time-traveled-to-talk-to-medieval-yokels-about-economics
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 01/28/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Where Is The Next War? Iran? Venezuela?” (01/28/26)
- The Briefing Podcast with Michael Waldman, 01/28/26
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
“Pam Bondi’s ‘Ransom’ Letter (with Wendy Weiser).” (01/28/26)
- Rising, 01/28/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers radar on what he believes as a Republican hypocrisy on the second Amendment and on gun rights after the [murder] of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minnesota, over the weekend.” (01/28/26)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5710053-rising-january-28-2026/
- The David Frum Show, 01/28/26
Source: The Atlantic
“David Brooks on moral collapse, the limits of politics, and what the neocons got right about America. Plus: Another ICE shooting in Minneapolis and Netflix’s Death by Lightning.” (01/28/26)
- The Daily, 01/28/29
Source: New York Times
“Trump Changes Course in Minneapolis.” (01/28/26)
- Reason Interview: JC Bradbury
Source: Reason
“The Real Reason You Pay for NFL Stadiums.” (01/28/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/01/28/the-real-reason-you-pay-for-nfl-stadiums/
- The Illegal News with Sarah Longwell, 01/28/26
Source: The Bulwark
“Federal Judge Threatens ICE With Contempt (w/ Elliot Williams).” (01/28/26)
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 01/28/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Advisers Quietly Turn on Stephen Miller as Brutal ICE Poll Hits.” (01/28/26)
- Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 01/28/26
Source: Politico
“The immigration divides.” (01/28/26)
- TAC Right Now, 01/28/26
Source: The American Conservative
“Trump’s Crisis in Minneapolis & Divorce from Europe.” (01/28/26)